Sisyphus, condemned by gods for disobedience, was forced to roll up a rock till a mountain top eternally, since it fell down on the other side of it each time. The absurdity of repetition in his purposeless and infinite action highlights vividly the fate of our human condition. Yet, for Albert Camus, as stated in his 1942 essay, one can envision a happy Sisyphus, in the sense that he found fulfilment in the making rather than the purpose. The same goes with many artists who use absurdity to represent our rational perception of the world.

In a world where reason is queen, the burst of absurdity confronts us with our relationship to normality. By definition, it doesn’t abide by logic or common sense. It reveals a gap between our conscious perception of the world and what we miss. The absurd is nonstandard and enables us to get off the beaten tracks. It allows modifications in meanings and excesses. There are many kinds of absurd, it can be extravagant, illogical, odd, paradoxical and subversive, or all that combined together.